


Family, Duty, Honor

by Flyting



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Actually-A-Good-Leader!Hux, Community: tfa_kink, Competence Kink, First Meetings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Original Character Death(s), Phasma backstory, Phasma/Hux bromance, Protective Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6658279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyting/pseuds/Flyting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An officer learns that General Hux does not tolerate the abuse of his soldiers.</p><p>  <i>Hux pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes a smudge from the polished black metal before holstering it. “My father used to say that his training program was his other child. I’ve always thought that, in a way, that makes us family.” </i></p><p>Written for a tfa-kink prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family, Duty, Honor

It was not her place to make assumptions about her superior officers.  
  
But if it were, she would have thought that the new general was a nervous, pedantic sort of man. The kind who directs his troops from safely inside his office, like he’s playing a game of dejarik.  
  
Not that she has ever spoken to the general personally before. It was something in the way he walked; tense and ramrod straight, his hands constantly clenching or twisting around each other behind his back. He reeked of thinly-concealed anxiety.  
  
Pale and aristocratic, the youngest of his rank at barely thirty, General Hux had the air of someone with relatives in high places.  
  
When she is dragged before him in his office, she is briefly surprised to discover that he’s as tall as she is. Even standing in front of her, he seems somehow smaller. As if all that tension was pulling him inwards, like a star collapsing into a black hole, making him seem less than he really was.  
  
He is fussing with his gloves, tugging at the stiff new leather, when she is brought in.  
  
“I’d like to make an example out of this one,” Captain Merix creaks, oily with satisfaction. She gets a small flare of pleasure from the way his broken nose flattens his voice. “I thought perhaps the pillory, the way we used to.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “With your permission, sir.”  
  
“Why?” General Hux asks flatly, more interested in his gloves than in either of them.  
  
She resists the urge to scream through ease of long practice.  
  
“Assault on a superior officer, sir,” Merix says, thumbing at the bruising on his nose. “The usual penalty for that is, ah, execution. But I thought, considering her exemplary record, other arrangements could be made. A day or two to learn a bit of humility should suffice.”  
  
She would gladly take the death sentence, and thank the executioner for it. It isn’t humility Merix wants her to learn.  
  
“The goodness of your heart, Captain?” General Hux fixes Merix with a pale-eyed stare. He crosses to his desk without looking at her, pulling something up on a datapad with one hand while the other clenches and unclenches at his side, making the leather creak.  
  
Merix shifts slightly from foot to foot beside her, unsure if he’s been dismissed or not.  
  
“Just yesterday you submitted a commendation for this particular soldier,” the general reads from his datapad. “You called her one of your best, and recommended her for immediate promotion. Today she punched you in the face. Why?”  
  
It takes a moment for her to realize that last question was directed at her. She swallows to clear her dry throat. When she speaks, her voice is hard and clear, “Because he threatened to rescind his recommendation for promotion unless I went to bed with him, sir. Then he attempted to touch me.”  
  
“Clearly she, ah, misunderstood the situation,” Merix says, barely even attempting to make the lie sound convincing.  
  
“Did she?” Hux asks, with all the cold, slow patience of a glacier wearing away at the landscape of some frozen planet.  
  
“Either way, that’s hardly cause to strike a superior officer.” Merix half-smiles, as if letting the general in on a little secret.  
  
Hux hums thoughtfully. He beckons Merix closer with a little crook of his gloved hand, and gestures for him to sit across the desk. Merix tucks his hat under his arm, pausing to run a hand over his thinning hair, as he folds into a stiff-backed chair.  
  
Not having been told otherwise, she stays where she is, relaxing into a loose parade rest. Out of respect, she does her utmost not to actively listen in on their conversation, in spite of the fact that General Hux is making no effort to exclude her.  
  
“Do you know why we don’t use clone armies anymore, Captain?” he asks.  
  
“Your father’s training program is reported to be a model of efficiency.” Merix nods, obsequious.  
  
“That isn’t what I asked.”  
  
Merix pauses, thrown. “Then I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”  
  
“Studies showed that when placed in a unique situation, a cloned soldier will make the same decision as his peers seventy-six percent of the time. Do you know what that means?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
“There are, of course, variables for upbringing and temperament,” General Hux says dismissively, “but largely what it means is that seventy-six percent of the time, a cloned soldier will make the exact same _mistake_ as his peers.”  
  
“I see, sir.”  
  
“Do you? Then tell me why we don’t use a clone army anymore.”  
  
“Well…” Merix stammers. “Since the new soldiers make fewer mistakes-“  
  
“I didn’t say they made fewer mistakes. Please keep up. The point is, Captain, that they make completely different mistakes. Even with training, ten thousand different soldiers will react to a new situation in ten thousand unique ways. And one of those variances might be the difference between victory and defeat. What we lose in uniformity, we make up for in adaptability.”  
  
“Of course, sir.”  
  
“Do you know what the first rule of survival is? It’s basic genetics.”  
  
“… Adaptability, sir?”  
  
“Good. Now, in this particular case, we have an exemplary soldier, whose reaction to being propositioned by a superior officer is to completely disregard rank and strike him.”  
  
"Yes, sir,” Merix says, smirking like he’s won something. She regrets not having hit him harder.  
  
“Now, what do you think a soldier like that will do to the enemy in a tight spot?”  
  
He frowns. “I-I don’t know, sir.”  
  
“Neither do I.” General Hux smiles, thin lipped. Worrying at his gloves again, he adds, “Incidentally, Merix, do not quote procedures and penalties at me. I should think I know them all by now, considering I wrote the last edition of the code of regulations.”  
  
Merix pales. “Of course not, sir- I never meant to imply. I was simply outlining the usual protocol in these cases.”  
  
“ ’In these cases’,” Hux echoes, quietly. “Tell me, do ‘these cases’ happen often?”  
  
“I… Sir?”  
  
The general’s mouth twitches, an aborted snarl. “I’ll clarify. Do the men you’re trying to rape usually fight back?”  
  
“That’s, ah, rather harsh,” Merix gives a desperate little half-laugh, as if he is waiting for Hux to reveal that this is all a joke. “You’ll find that everyone does it, sir. It’s just one of those things…”  
  
“Perks of being an officer?”  
  
“Precisely, sir.”  
  
“I see.” He laces his fingers together on the desk, thoughtfully. “If she’s up for a promotion, it only stands to reason that you deserve reimbursement for your time and effort in bringing that about?”  
  
She does not move, or react, even as the pit drops out of her stomach.  
  
“Something like that, sir. Just a little consideration.” Merix agrees.  
  
“And if I ordered you to drop your trousers and bend over this desk? As your superior officer, that’s my right?”  
  
“I…” Merix stammers. “Well that’s hardly the same…”  
  
“Are you sure? I’ll even promote you.”  
  
While Merix flounders, unable to think of a response that isn’t either treasonous or damning, General Hux rises from his desk, pushing the chair back in neatly as he does, and crosses to her.  
  
“Is this the first time this has happened?” he asks, hands clasped behind his back.  
  
“To me, yes, sir. There have been others.”  
  
He nods once, brisk. “Another thing about the new training program- _my father’s_ program,” Hux says to Merix, “Is that they do not have submission bred into them the way a clone army does. This means that, unfortunately for officers who lead by threats rather than respect, you have to treat them like people or they will turn on you. A captain whose men hate him is a liability.”  
  
He draws a blaster from his belt, a sleek new F11N model, holding it up between them. Merix rises in alarm.  
  
“If you had to choose between shooting a Resistance soldier and Captain Merix, who would you pick?” Hux asks her. He almost sounds bored.  
  
Her eyes never leave the general. Somehow, he no longer seems quite so small. “I’d shoot them both, sir. But I would shoot the Resistance soldier first.”  
  
Hux makes a sharp sound in his nose that might have been a laugh.  
  
“Sir, you can’t-“ Merix begins.  
  
“Shoot the captain,” General Hux interrupts, handing her the blaster. He flinches slightly when she levels it over his shoulder and fires, but doesn’t pull away. She will not hold it against him.  
  
“Call sanitation,” he adds, holding out his hand for the weapon. She places it in his palm without hesitation.  
  
“Yes, sir,” she says smartly, snapping a salute. “Thank you, sir.”  
  
For just a moment she is ashamed of the relief that leaks into the words. It’s unbecoming. Shameful. But the general does not acknowledge it.  
  
Hux pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes a smudge from the polished black metal before holstering it. “My father used to say that his training program was his other child. I’ve always thought that, in a way, that makes us family.” He folds the handkerchief neatly before putting it back in his pocket. “What do they call you?”  
  
“Phasma, sir.”  
  
“Congratulations, Captain Phasma. You’ve just been promoted.”

**Author's Note:**

> Today I learned that Hux is 300% more chill when I write him without Kylo.


End file.
